Need and Relevance of
Gnanapriya C (gnanapriyac@infosys.com),
Principal Architect,
Communication Service Provider
Practice
Puneet Gupta (Puneet_Gupta@infosys.com),
Research area leader – Convergence Lab, SetLABS
Infosys Technologies Ltd,
Introduction
Internet and
Data from Wireless World Forum’s
“Indian Mobile Market 2006” statistical handbook reveals that mobile ownership
will pass 100 million in 2007 as ‘the largest middle class in the world’ takes
up ownership. With 124.6 million forecasted mobile owners in 2007,
Internet
Revolution
Internet has really taken
computational and information technology to a new stage – computers communicate
with each other. This has helped in variety of areas including communication,
knowledge sharing, handling transactions (e-commerce) etc. The impact of
internet revolution has already been felt on the economic growth across the
world and increasing so in emerging economies where Internet is emerging as a
very effective tool for enabling a level playing ground.
A quick
look at the big picture would be useful to begin understanding the potential impact
(and challenges!) of Internet and mobile internet on a country like
q
Population --1,080,264,388 (around 70% lives
in rural area)
q
Area -- 3,287,590 sq km (more than 600,000+
villages)
q
Political subdivisions-- 28 states,7 union
territories
q
Literacy--55.2 %
q
Per-capita income-- 0.4 $ per day
Source: Dipankaj G Medhi,
Asian Institute of
While internet has been
instrumental to the sort of IT revolution we are witnessing in
|
Name of
the Project |
Purpose |
Future
planes |
|
Akshaya |
Making a district E-literate,
limited employment generation. |
Delivery of multiple service at Akshaya centers and expand it to other districts |
|
Bhoomi |
Issue of Land title at 177 Bhoomi kiosks and through privately owned kiosks |
Expand rural kiosk network |
|
Drishtee |
Creating a network of privately
owned kiosks for e access to info, government and service commercial |
Expand Network to cover new kiosk |
|
E-choupal |
The prime target is farmer.
Farmers get information about seeds’ price, etc |
Scale to more users |
|
N-Logue |
Multipurpose Internet kiosks
based on WILL |
Expand for commercial utilization |
|
Gyandoot |
Connecting rural cyber café
catering the everyday needs of the masses. |
Extend for global Internet |
(Ref: Dipankaj
G Medhi, Asian Institute of
While Internet presents itself as
a powerful technological phenomenon to achieve this, there are still challenges
with respect to the access mechanisms. Internet access still suffers from
issues such as the quality of electricity supply, availability of fixed line telephony
infrastructure, the cost of the basic computer/connectivity set-up as well as
issues related to end user education and comfort with use of the technology.
Better
reach out with
Internet usage is more in urban
areas where literacy is more, supported by better local connectivity
infrastructures. But for a wider reach, especially to rural
With monthly subscriptions inching towards six million additions
per month - 5.9 million of them - are new mobile subscriptions, making
Every cell phone can technically be used as a data
access device. One can use GSM data bearers to get circuit switched data
connections at 9.6 Kbps or so, the cost and complexity in this access mechanism
doesn’t make it a very practical option for most application. GPRS based packet
data access, is the practical alternative offering decent internet access
capability and in a cost effective manner. Issue, how ever is GPRS support in
handsets and availability of service. As, Chirasrota
Jena points out in the article titled, “mobile connectivity- opportunities
galore”, operators have been offering GPRS services since 2003 and the
effective coverage and the quality of coverage has been expanding over the
years. Today speeds are being offered that compared favorably with basic rate
ISDN. CDMA (Code-Division Multiple Access) providers offered speeds as high as
128 Kbps. Further the paper mentions that “by early 2005, it had become common
place for users to utilize their mobile phones for accessing the Net,
especially notebook users. Even where Wi-Fi is
available at hotels and other transit points, users find it more convenient to
use their existing GPRS or CDMA services rather than struggle with configuring
to use the local Wi-Fi network. Dialup connectivity’s
biggest bugbear has been the pulse charges and in 2004, almost all cellular
phone service providers introduced flat tariffs where you pay extra only if you
exceed a bandwidth limit, usually 500 MB or 1 GB”
|
Wireless connectivity technologies |
||
|
Wi-Fi |
The
foundation of the wireless LAN, Wi-Fi is usually
implemented through the 802.11b or 802.11g protocols. 'b'
has a bandwidth of 11 Mbps, 'g' five times that. Work is afoot on 'n' which
will offer Fast Ethernet equivalent or better speeds. |
Wi-Fi
network coverage is limited to within offices and campuses and scattered
hotspots at this point of time. |
|
WiMAX |
802.16
is the protocol family with fixed (802.11d) and nomadic (802.11e) variants. WiMAX operates in the frequency band 3.3-3.4 GHz. |
WiMax is
starting to move out of the pilot stage and into deployment as telecom majors
BSNL, MTNL, Bharti Televentures,
Reliance, Sify, and VSNL have all acquired licenses
in the 3.3-3.4 GHz spectrum. WiMAX could revolutionize
backhaul. |
|
GPRS |
General
Packet Radio Service is also known as 2.5G. This technology used to be the
only option for packet data on GSM networks. It has now been superseded by
EDGE but the fact that more handsets support GPRS than EDGE ensures its
continued relevance for a year or two longer. |
GPRS is
widely available with every GSM operator offering it as a value-added
service. |
|
EDGE |
An
acronym for Enhanced Data GSM Environment it is faster than GPRS delivering
data at rates of up to 384 Kbps |
Handset
support is picking up as GSM service providers offer EDGE. It will, however,
be side-lined in the next year or two as 3G picks up. |
|
3G |
3G
refers to third generation wireless technology in mobile communications. Its
capabilities include enhanced multimedia, and upwards of 2 Mbps throughput. |
3G will
be deployed by Indian telcos in 2007 |
Different
wireless connectivity options [Ref:
As the table points out, a
variety of wireless access options are beginning to emerge making data access
over mobile wireless devices more effective and more practical than ever.
Mobile
value proposition
In
Also
beyond the value that mobile technologies bring in terms of easy and ubiquitous
access, mobile technologies comes with their inherent advantages not available
with traditional Internet access. These include
Often
the value proposition of technology or phenomenon like mobile internet is
different from an end user’s perspective compared to an enterprise. Though in
many cases there is a linkage between the two. While mobile internet can be an
easy and effective channel for an enterprise to expand the reach of its
services, at the same time it can turn out to be an effective access mechanism
for the end user to consume those services.
At a
broad level, the mobile Value proposition to an enterprise can be looked at as
•
A
new channel to reach out to customers and employees alike
•
Another
self service channel: As end users start getting used to experience a wide
range of mobile voice and data services using mobilizes, an implicit demand to
be able to reach out to your business is emerging- Self service via mobile
channel can be a killer App
•
Employee
enablement. Providing the right data, applications and mobile tools to your
field service can substantially enhance productivity and effectiveness, factors
that have direct impact on day to operations and real customer service
•
Expanding
to far-out and less accessible rural areas where having a physical presence may
not make sense. Very cost effective in virtually extending your enterprises to
wherever your customers are, also acquisition of new clients
The next
section provides a tabular overview of applicability of mobile based information
access technologies across different verticals.
Usage
of
|
Sl. No. |
Industry segment |
Segment details |
Access / Information requirement |
Applicability for |
|
1 |
Government |
executive,
legislative and general government, justice, public order
and safety, public finance, taxation, monetary policy, administration of HR,
environmental quality,
housing, economic programs, national security and international affairs, and
all other Central, international and local government. |
Enable
mobility to e-Governance(National e-Governance plan) |
Update
status, alerts, notification via SMS based on which users can get into the
e-Governance portal for more details |
|
2 |
Agriculture |
Harvesting,
Marketing, pest control, crop rotation |
Online advice, transactions, information retrieval |
Alerts,
Advice, transactions can be handled by SMS based applications or via thin
client mobile browser based interfaces |
|
3 |
Health
Care |
Hospitals,
clinics, doctors, nursing, dentists, medical and dental laboratories, And other health services. |
Data
sharing, Expert advice, registration for public health service, appointment,
alerts, notification |
SMS
based applications for information/alerts and transactions based on WiFi / GPRS connectivity at home and hospitals for real time
heavy data uploads / downloads |
|
4 |
Financial
Services |
Banking,
securities, insurance (other than health) and health Insurance (the payer). |
Mobile Banking, Financial transactions, Micro finance,
Micro Insurance Information
retrieval (account, loan inquiry, status check), Banking transactions,
payments, requests (DD, Cheque book etc) |
SMS /
WAP based applications. Thin client mobile browser based interfaces. J2ME
based thick client apps for providing online/offline information access |
|
5 |
Retail
Trade, Trading |
General retailers, specialty retailers,
grocery, restaurants and hotels. |
Interactive communication / Financial transactions /
M-commerce Online store
can leverage the mobile channel to deliver instant information
to users, assisting them to make informed buying decisions, while helping the
retailers to understand and evaluate consumers' preferences. Auctions is another attractive application area |
SMS /
WAP based applications. Thin client mobile browser based interfaces. J2ME
based thick client apps for providing online/offline information access |
|
6 |
Utilities |
Electric, gas, oil, nuclear power and sanitary
services |
Real
time Meter reading updates Bill
payments Real
time info sharing |
SMS
based applications WiFi / GPRS for heavy data uploads |
|
7 |
Communications |
Wire
line, Wireless, Cable, Television, Radio broadcasting |
Mobile
Content Delivery News,
Alerts, Content (Music, Video clips), Gaming |
SMS
based applications, Streaming with GPRS / 3G / 4G network services (XoIP, IPTV etc) |
|
8 |
Manufacturing |
automotive,
industrial, electrical and commercial equipment, medical
equipment and supplies, computer and high-technology, electronics,
transportation Equipment and all other discrete manufacturing. |
Mobile
Field Force , real time updates, low cost supply chain management – info
access |
SMS
based applications as well thick client based models for storing information
for offline access. Real time data updates with WiFi
and GPRS networks. |
|
9 |
Transportation |
water,
rail and air transportation, urban passenger transit, motor freight Transit,
pipelines, warehousing, couriers, and transportation support services. |
Fleet
Management (real time updates), M Ticketing, Schedule updates |
SMS
based applications for updates, m ticketing, schedule updates, status check |
|
10 |
Services |
IT
service providers, software publishers, professional, scientific and
technical services, real estate, and business and consumer services. |
Real
time data access, mobile Content delivery, m-trading, m-bookings |
SMS
based applications, Streaming with GPRS / 3G / 4G network services (XoIP, IPTV etc) |
Challenges
with state of art technologies
While the fundamental value
proposition of mobile access to information and mobile transactions is clear,
it is important that one realizes the key complexities associated with mobility
and find out ways to effectively deal with those challenges. Some of the key
challenges are listed below.
q Managing Device Diversity. There
are several hundreds of mobile devices out there each with different form
factors and underlying technology platforms. Building solutions that scale
across these device types is a challenge
q Context sensitivity: Dealing with
user contexts, device contexts, network contexts and application contexts which
keep changing and hence the application needs to evolve its behavior as the
underlying context changes
q Planning for but “not assuming”
any-where, any-time connectivity. While a solution should leverage the almost
ubiquitous connectivity that is available, the solution must take into account
the fact that connectivity can just disappear in the most unexpected of ways
q Right approach to Security:
Application architectures assuming low network level security and not depending
on how secure individual apps are written to be
q Minimizing the cost and complexity
involved with mobilizing apps
q
Immature
standards in content rendering technologies. Multiple forums and bodies
(wireless technologies, internet). Non availability of e2e Interoperability
standards
q
Aligning
to the right set of technologies for the business needs. There have been
several instances where mobile technologies have been very enthusiastically
applied in different scenarios only to be met with disappointment as very often
a combination of wrong applications and wrong technologies is chosen.
Infosys has been
looking into these challenges and our effort have been aligned towards
development of technology platforms as well as solutions that aim to bring the
best value from application of mobile technologies in specific areas, while
dealing with the unique challenges such as those articulated above. Some of our
solutions and platforms are described next, to give the reader a feeling of the
kind of technology as well as applications specific efforts that need to be put
to make mobile information access a practical and relevant access mechanism.
Infosys
mobility solutions with a strong Indian context
1.
Insurance
for Rural
One of the
more significant challenges that organizations face, including those in the
insurance sectors, is the ability to serve the client base in small towns and
in rural areas where it is not practical to extend the company’s presence by
setting up physical infrastructures. Many of these places are not well served
even from an internet connectivity perspective. Surprisingly even the remotest
of these areas are today being served by mobile networks. We have been working
on creating technology platforms that enable creation of solutions that
leverage a low cost mobile device that a local, employed by the company as its
representative, can use to provide several services which were hitherto
possible only when a customer were to visit the nearest office in one of the
towns. The field representative can use her/his mobile phone to access services
like getting customer information, receiving alerts related to due dates for
renewals and updation of premium payments received, just to give a few
examples. Thus by using a low cost mobile device, the field agent can provide
all critical services even in areas where setting up of basic internet
infrastructure can be a challenge. Advanced synchronization techniques
supporting both SMS and wireless data technologies offered by GPRS as well as
CDMA networks, ensure that the cost per transaction can be kept extremely low.
2.
Microfinance
MicroFinance is a solution provides a finance company providing micro-loans to
help their field agents to track their customers, their credit limits, loans
and payments. The situation involves a credit company providing “micro” loans
where the loan amounts are very small. Therefore the cost of transaction per
loan sanctioned or payment made should be extremely low. With the MicroFinance application, data is available with the
finance company’s agent to monitor his clients’ loans and their payments.
Transactions are offline and data is synchronized with backend server at a
later time or when connectivity is available.
The key
attributes of the solution is the way the technology solution deals with
factors like:
–
Non-availability
of network connection
–
Cost
of network connectivity (air-time) to access data
–
Security
of confidential data transmitted/received over the air
–
Speed
of transactions
–
Data
loss and recovery
3.
Application
of mobile real time data for dairy professionals
Based on TruSync, Infosys mobile synchronization platform, this
solution is aimed at enabling field force of a dairy organization to enable us
of mobile device like PDAs to provide nutrition,
animal diet and wellness services as well as vaccination services to farmers
who have no other effective mechanism to scientifically deal with animal care
to increase net yields. The solution strength lays in the ability of underlying
technology platform to deal with the complexities of the wireless connectivity
infrastructure. The technology enables the application to work in offline
situations when connectivity is not available or when the cost of connectivity
is high. The technology involves opportunistic pre-fetching of data and by
masking the disconnectedness from the end application by fetching the data from
the local database, masking the actual state of connectedness from the end
application. The solution is also aimed at demonstrating the feasibility of such
mobile solutions both from technology and cost perspectives.
Infosys
mobility platforms
1.
Infosys m-Connect platform
m-Connect
is Infosys context aware mobile transactions platform that enables extension of
any web based application to be made available for access from any web enabled
mobile device in manner that is
optimized for each device. The platform takes into account factors such as
Screen real estate, Input, Cost of Connectivity, Heterogeneity, Application
Deployment, and Available Bandwidth
The
platform is a web server side middleware that detects device type and in real
time renders a transaction interface suited for a mobile device. One of the
critical aspects of the platform is the way existing back end infrastructure is
leverages meaning that an existing application can be mobile enabled in
incredibly short time frames.
2.
True Sync
TruSync is an Infosys platform for
building mobile synchronization based mobile solutions. By harnessing the power
of “Context” TruSync ensures that optimized mobility
is realized and the solution understands and appropriately reacts to evolving
environment conditions without end-user disruption
Essentially Trusysnc
offers one time architectural foundation doing away with the need of dependency
on the individual mobile applications to deal with issues such as network
connectivity aberrations, security and transaction prioritization.
Key Architectural foundations: